evan's ant village log

Day 141

All this smoke in the air is brutal on my productivity, to say nothing of my lungs. Hope these fires end soon and the air clears.

Second round of ducklings arrived! They're just a week younger, but they're so tiny! I let the two groups get used to seeing and hearing each other for a bit and then integrated them. The little ones got picked on at first but now they're all the best of frands.

Checked on the barrel of soaking cow pies that was left over at the Allerton Abbey cobbing project, maybe two or three weeks old, and it was full of maggots! Cool! Hopefully I'll keep going through my cow pies faster and not let em soak that long.

Day 142

Dillon came out for the super week and has been super helpful, limbing and cutting poles, and tossing cob gobs up to me on the roof of Siesta. He's got the right idea bundling up like a bandit to filter some of the smoke out of the air. Thanks Dillon!

During the hottest part of the day, we hung out in Allerton Abbey and played Pandemic! We totally saved the world and won, too. Aw yeah. Chris, the 6th ant, brought a bunch of cool board games. We won't be bored this winter for sure. Thanks Chris! Y'all should totally check out his thread: https://permies.com/t/49646/labs/Chris-ant-blathering

Day 143

In the morning, with Dillon's help, finished cobbing the north side of the roof of Siesta. I was walking around on the already dried part and not even a little dust was falling down below, so far so good. I'll just keep on keeping on with the same mix of a handful of unchopped straw, about half clayey sand from the meadow, and about half bullshit.

Went into Missoula with Fred in the afternoon, and among other things, picked up a couple 4-gallon buckets from the bakery for cheap. Buckets sure come in handy for lots of different projects, and I'll definitely have to pick up some more next time I'm in town.

Ducklings are looking good. I don't think I'm quite ready to build a rocket mass brooder just yet, but someday I would certainly like to. I have some ideas for how to quickly throw together a winter shelter for them though, and it should keep them warm once they feather out.

Day 144

My limiting factor on cobbing right now is soaked and smooshed cow pies, so I got a couple barrels soaking at the same time. I'm pretty confident I can use it all up before they start growing maggots in them.

While awaiting the soakage, Nick, Dillon, and I started throwing together a little pie-shaped debris-shelter/berm-shed winter duck hollow thingy in eastern Lewisylvania. It's gonna be awesome. Thanks Nick and Dillon!

The other day I found what looked like some kind of tree growing in one of my hugelberms on the edge of Téjas. I've been planting basically any seed I can get my hands on, so I had no idea what it was except that it seemed different from the other growies around here. I asked Fred for help identifying it and he decided it might be a sawtooth oak! Thanks Fred!

duuuuckies!!! ahhh they's so cute! looking forward to learning each and every one of their names.

thank you for your updates, it's damn near impossible to live vicariously through the other ants aiaiaii (shaking fist very hard at every one)

carol-anne besler wrote:
thank you for your updates, it's damn near impossible to live vicariously through the other ants aiaiaii (shaking fist very hard at every one)

Yes, thank you, Evan, for your ever faithful posts!

Looks a little like a sweet chestnut seedling to me.

Day 145

Jacob and Shannon dropped by and put on a very informative and interesting honey bee workshop. Jacob replaced the painted boxes with nice fresh unpainted ones, and harvested a little bit of honey. Seeing the inside of a hive like that was really neat! I'm looking forward to keeping a couple hives of my own one of these days.

It was a warm and somewhat smoky day, so even though the whole replacing the boxes endeavour could have been pretty stressful on the bees, only a couple folks got stung and now the bees have less toxins in their environment. Plus I got to wear a bee suit! Thanks Jacob and Shannon! Check out http://www.wustnerbrothers.com

It rained in the afternoon and through the evening, which finally knocked down all the smoke in the air. And hopefully made everything a bit less flammable too. Ahhh... much easier to breathe now.

Day 146

The ducklings are getting bigger every day. I acquired some nutritional yeast for them, and I've been mixing it into their feed. I don't see them picking on each other anymore, but they're all still a bit scared of me. Maybe over time we can become friends too.

Kai, a brand new gapper, helped me mix up some cob and apply it to my roof, and he also helped cut and limb up a bunch of poles, clearing some space where I plan on building some hugelberms. This guy is industrious. Thanks Kai!

Day 147

Threw some more cob up onto my roof. The cobbing is just about 3/4ths done I think. It seems to be holding together remarkably well considering how little experience I have with this building method.

My garden is looking mighty fine, what with those 10 ft tall sunflowers. I'm pretty sure these were from seeds that Kate Muller sent me way back when. Thanks again Kate! I've got some dill coming up too, mmmmm, and I'm not the only one finding it delicious. I think I counted three different species of pollinator all enjoying this one dill plant at the same time.

The lumber I ordered finally arrived. Brian snuck up on me in the evening and dropped off about 1000 board feet of 2x6s. Thanks Brian! This milled lumber is gonna make my walls go up freaky fast, and reduce my cobbin' footprint for sure.